Book for new mum - I wish I'd been told that....

[MummyElk]

Similar to portofino's thread but i wanted to be more specific...

so my very good friend is about to have her baby - and in reintroducing myself to Early Parenthood with the birth of my DD2 I've realised there is a whole list of Things I Wish I'd Been Told...
like:

• lavender oil on maternity pads
• Recovery: Getting Up From Seats: straighten one leg first before pushing up from seat (doesn't seem to stretch stitches so much)
• start dream feeding early (like from the moment Baby fits into BabyDry nappies and therefore can more or less get through the night without changing....)
• Swaddle (and persevere with it)

I'm doing her a book of them.

Anything to add?
What did you do to ease colic?
Are fussy evenings just a TTSP thing?
Bfing tips?

help please!!!

@ Beans33

Also agree with rubbing breast milk in to nipples (then air drying) is a fantastic tip. I found Lansinoh actually over softened mine which made them more vulnerable. In the early days the colostrum is even better at healing the initial damage.

That cheapo breast pads are not worth the money.

That hot (or ice cold) water poured into a disposable nappy makes an excellent hot or cold compress for boobs/stitches/whatever. The absorbent core turns to gel and keeps the heat much better than a wet flannel.

Pushing a squalling baby up and down in the pram (indoors) can get her to sleep when nothing else has worked.

Buy a big bundle of clothes from ebay. Someone else will buy cute outfits, as a gift. Don't spend money on those yourself, tempting though it may be.

MILs don't necessarily notice that you have your pyjamas on.

The herb fenugreek increases your milk supply, but does smell a bit funny and it's safe.

What a lovely thread MummyElk - hope your friend and her baby are doing well

haven't read the thread - haven't had time - but I can see there are lots of useful things about babies etc. For the mum herself there are two things I've found a godsend (and wish I'd known in advance): a small handbag that can be worn across the body and dry shampoo.

I was a classic massive handbag gal, crammed with books, umbrella, and the miscellaneous things that live in massive handbags (too sleep deprived to even remember!), but between the pram and the changing bag my old handbags didn't get a look in once DS arrived. So I bought a small handbag that fits my purse, phone, keys, oyster card, hand sanitiser, emergency makeup (powder & lip gloss basically) and random small things like spare breast pads (I use ones in a wrapper). I sling it on and I have all my necessary things in one place...considering I locked myself out and went out with a nappy bag with no nappies in it in the early weeks my little handbag's been a godsend!

And dry shampoo - which you can pick up in Boots. I just don't have time to wash my hair every day and a hairdresser friend recommended dry shampoo and it's great. A short cut to washed looking hair that made me feel a lot better about my appearance...which helps when you're sleep deprived and your baby's screaming crying and shaking and you're feeling frazzled!

Such a great thread - my second baby is 4 weeks old and I've been wishing and wishing I'd written down stuff like this as I can't remember anything from first time round - and hurrah here it all is! A great memory jog.

some great tips on here , loved the poem too.
the best I can offer is when feeding/changing baby at night speak very softly,and keep the lights out or very low, so she soon knows what is night and what is day.
If you want to breastfeed do it, don't be put off by nannies and the thought of embarrassment in public , you get the hang of it in no time . if you don't , don't feel guilty , you have another 21 years to lament all the mistakes you will make.
enjoy your baby- sod the washing/ironing hoovering etc

Colic: we tried everything, infacol, dentinox, colief etc. The only thing that worked and the last thing we tried was bio gaia drops (like yakult but for babies).

Night feeds: if your baby is in a separate room, keep a radio in there and switch it on when you go to feed, it helps you feel you're not the only one awake

Breastfeeding: makes you starving. Keep food upstairs so you don't have to go down for it and get cold in the middle of the night. You get back to sleep quicker this way if you don't get cold feet.

Stitches: mix some aromatherapy bath oil and make sure you get 20 minutes every day to soak in it. You need 3 drops camomile oil and 3 drops lavender oil per 5 mls of carrier (e.g. grapeseed oil or milk). Put a couple of teaspoons in your bath - this recipe was given to me by a birth centre and my stitches healed in record time according to my community midwife.

I was one of the ones who bought countless cute outfits. What a waste! Babygros, T-shirs and leggings all the way.
And I still don't understand why so many baby clothes have the buttons on the back?!

I found the only reliable thing to calm my baby was singing or humming. If it doesn't work immediately, just carry on, after a short while they start listening and stop crying. It still works if she has one of her 'don't want to go to sleep' days and my daugther is almost 2 now.

Don't fret too much about how to entertain or stimulate them in the 1st few months. Fact is, they just don't do very much!
Do what feels right for you and your baby and do not try to follow all 'rules', it will drive you insane.

Agree about bf. It does work and it's bliss when it does. Ow at first, but it does work.
Health visitors are IMO in league with Satan due to weight tables.
You don't need a pricy pram or even a cot, or anything except clothes and nappies and a sling. I just had a bf sling, and a folding pushchair from 20 months.
I know some will laugh, but a homeopathic remedy cured dd's colic. I laugh too, but it WORKED.
Cosleeping. Kick dh out onto mattress on floor. If you don't smoke or drink, it's safe, and by feeding lying down you can feed in your sleep.
No need to offer solids before 6 months or even nine - they need to have lost the tongue thrust reflex anyway.
Some days you lfee absolutely blah, but other are the best ever.
You have to do it your way.

Interesting...

Let me think...

Lansinoh (sp?) a definite...
Cheap multi-packs of enormous pants - so cheap and nasty they can go straight in the bin (I know, save the world etc etc)to take in to hosp - wearing paper pants aint gonna make anyone feel good.
Lie - and don't give yourself a hard time about doing so - refuse visitors for spurious reasons!
Don't plan - esp the birth etc. Otherwise you have expectations and we all know what can happen with them. Just have an idea of what would be nice but totally go with the flow.
After pains - be warned... I wasn't and thought I was either exploding inside or going in to labour with an undiagnosed twin... it was not funny - but is now!

Hope that helps!

Baby 3 due in 4 weeks and can't believe how much I had forgotten-which proves the point that all sleep deprivation, crying nights etc is just a phase and passes in what is actually a short amount of time.

My main tip I learnt from baby 1 is that when someone offers help-do not accept "help" that is them holding the baby while you do cleaning/tidying etc. Definitly needs to be other way round.

Introduce bottle from start even if breast feeding and keep using bottle regularly. I used bottle for expressed milk until baby was 3 months then stopped for 2 months. Baby would never take bottle again-had to breast feed for 17 months-couldn't get a night off at all!!

putting your dear baby to sleep awake in their cot when they get a bit bigger. Dont fall into the trap of shoo shooing them. Even at nap times.. I found this a godsend when they get a bit older instead of mucking about tring to get them off to sleep.
A couple of my friends still snuggle their three year old to sleep and although this is lovely for bonding, when you've been with them for twelve hours teething.. its a killer!!

Napisan - brilliant for getting off all stains. Ignore the instructions and just have a bucket full at all times to dunk mucky clothes into. Then just put them into the washer next time you wash and as if by magic, the mess has gone! Also works on white school socks when they are older..

My DH had the fantastic idea of buying a bunch of comedy DVDs (Michael McIntyre was my favourite at the time) for when our DD was feeding endlessly at night. I was often in agony in the first few weeks and this helped us all, massively.

Suddenly, it wasn't such a grim time of night after all and we had something to take our minds off the shock of a full newborn onslaught and the agony of early bf and after one week, mastitis
And yes, we did actually manage to laugh at them sometimes too

Love this thread and loved the poem too CS

It's normal to feel absolute rage when anyone but you or DP hold your baby in the first few days and have to fight the urge to snatch them back and run away. It does subside after a little while....

Second holding baby while bouncing them on yoga ball to get them to sleep (like magic!)

There is a difference between normal crying and going to sleep crying. Mine needs to make a kind of repetitive moaning noise to get herself to sleep. I mistook it for distress for weeks and she didn't sleep enough as a result as I kept picking her up and trying to calm her down.

Nothing lasts forever - when one stage seems unending it will soon make way for the next one (weaning seems easy when you've potty trained a child!)

A friend once told me: 'The days are long but the years are short'.

Write stuff down so you remember it for the next one - it's amazing what you forget!

Evening all and THANK YOU for such brilliant tips - i'd forgotten some of them myself and have learnt even more!! hurray for DD2 only being 7wks, excellent.
Friend had her baby boy last night, 8lbs 10oz and all is well. They're keeping her in one more night.
Meanwhile I....better get writing!!!!!

Keep em coming I can't see me finishing this till end of the week!!

p.s. LOVE naomi stadlen, if anyone hasn't read her book go for it, it'll make you feel so MUCH better

Shove some baking potatoes in the oven around 4pm. It doesn't matter if you forget about them & they make a change from pasta, which we had, I think, every day for the first two weeks!

What a lovely thread!

My suggestions:

• tea tree oil in the bath to help stitches heal. And take the time every day to have a long and relaxing bath. It will keep you sane.

• as everyone else has said: muslins! and don't skimp and get the cheapest ones.

• find yourself a group of friends with babies of a similar age, whether its an NCT group, a local mums and babies group or just some neighbours. Its always easier to do things in a group (such as breastfeeding in public). It will also satiate your endless desire to talk about babies without boring your childless friends to tears.

1. nothing that you do when they are tiny is wrong (within reason!)
2. make a note of when your baby feeds (feed on demand) and then look back at it once you are feeling totally worn out after a couple of weeks, you will have become quicker at changing and more time inbetween feeds. 3)go to bed in the early evening and pass the baby to Daddy/someone you trust. get them to bring your baby to you for a feed when he/she needs but then take the baby away again and let you rest before the night shift. 4)put a white/chalk board in the kitchen and write down things that you could do with doing/buying when anyone asks if they can help point them at the board and say fi there is anything they fancy doing - you are asking fo help but indirectly. 5)muslins
3. keep your birthing ball up, sit on it and bounce your baby will be soothed in the same way as if you are walking round 7)Breastfeed infront of a mirror look at yourself from all angles, then you will gain confidence when you are feeding with others around (at home or out and about)
4. Put the clean nappy open on the mat and place the baby on it, it holds the nappy open and is then readily available when your newly unwrapped baby wees everywhere! 8)look around, can you tell if any of the children you know were breastfed/slept through the night before they were a year old/weaned bang on 6 months/ coslept when they were babies/worn in a sling or had a buggy? so many of these things separate parents of young babies but over time they will be come less important with hindsight.

Best things I did:

-Jacket spuds and salad for tea in the beginning (as mentioned above). Easy, cheap, healthy, doesn't matter if they go cold while seeing to baby.

-Write down in notebook straight away who bought what gifts, so you know who to thank and don't lose track.

-Stay hydrated with carton drinks - no washing up.

-Try and have a long bath every few days, it really does chill you out.

-Slings.....not for me. She's my first, and I wanted to push her round in her big new pram every day, as I just felt so proud.

-Look at them a lot. They grow up in the blink of an eye.

It's the best thing you'll ever do, it truly is.

Infacol is amazing!... But does take a good week to get them trumping away like troopers (ime - dc1 is only 15wks old mind you!)

And if you have a cs and find that a bit of nylon thread hanging out of your scar this is quite normal, and you're not coming unstitched and noy going to die..... Really wish they'd told me before leaving hospital that sometimes the soluble nylon internal stiches can work their way out of you, would have saved a hysterical epipsode and phone call to labour ward at 3am when ds was 2wks old! Didn't know who else to call but figured they were the ones who stictched me back together so it was they're fault I suposedly was coming unravled!!

Everyone's babies are different so take all the tips and advise you can get on the understanding that you have full option to ignore it all.

I am mum of 2 with third due any day and my kids and friends kids are all so different.
Its not always the parents that make a difficult baby like some books you read tell you, sometimes it really IS a difficult or sick baby. You know your baby better than anyone.

Buzzy chairs are your friend. Get one before the baby is born as they hold the baby in a comfy newborn position and help reduce wind/colic with the buzz. They like to sleep in them during the day and leave your arms free while not being prone on the floor or moses basket which many babies don't like.

Car journeys, fresh air and white noise like detuned radio, hoover, hair dryer all great ways to get your baby off to sleep, especialy if over-tired.

No health professional will tell you not to breast feed on demand in the UK but if your baby was like my first she would demand a comfort feed 24 7 if you let her and I got cracked and bleeding nipples to the point of nearly giving up and going to bottle within days. If the baby is a good weight, healthy, feeding well and latched on 'comfortabley' but feeding all the time then it IS OK to feed the baby less. I found it really helped to set a maximum time of 30-40 mins per feed and set a minimum break time between feeds of at least 1 hour. Although this is still alot of feeding it gave me a chance to recover a bit and get through. With my second born I could confidently tell the difference between him feeding and comfort feeding and he didn't get into a comfort feeding habit.

Don't stress over breastfeeding. If it doesn't work for you or your baby then at least you have given it a try. It's not as big a deal as everybody says it is.

Start a bedtime routine as soon as you can. My son is 13 weeks old now and i'm still getting up 3 times a night! I wish i'd started a bedtime routine at about 8 weeks.

Don't compare your baby to other babies. They are all different.

Enjoy your baby - just wait till they start smiling at you, it's one of the best feelings in the world.