Your best tips for the first week with new baby??

[BananaMuffin]

I'm currently 37+3 with my first baby... just wondering if the experienced mums out there have any particularly useful tips for the first couple of weeks/ things you wish people had told you? I am extremely excited but also don't know what to expect at all!

Just enjoy, everyone's experience is different feed her as much as possible and he/she'll sleep loads :-).

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hi, very inexperienced mum here, have 16 day old, but my advice would be SLEEP whenever you can, look after yourself (eat, drink, sleep), if baby is napping, do not use that time to do housework (except maybe putting a wash on to avoid running out of bibs/cloths! unless someone else can do that), sleep instead. i got so tired i was semi hallucinating, really not good.
Drink lots, eat plenty of fibre, fruit, veggies.

If you need painkillers & there is an alternative to codeine, take the alternative as constipation is a side effect (i mean crying on the loo, have to walk downstairs backwards, moaning, will never laugh at the word again constipation).

have a million bibs, grows & puke cloths, they go through them very very fast.

Don't be scared to tell visitors to leave.

Have lots of lovely cuddles!

oh yeah, i made charts, just simple ones documenting when dd was fed, how much & whether expressed milk or formula, also one saying when the sterilising fluid needed changing. made me feel abit more proactive / in control.

ignore stupid people who say things like "when's the other one coming out?" if you have a post pregnancy tum (or say "same time as your's" if they have a beer belly).

Thanks for all of this advice, it's so good to hear from people who have been through it all first hand! I'll be reading it again once my little one is born in March...not long to wait now!

do not make any plans and just go with the flow and keep the family at bay!

Haven't read the whole thread, sorry if any of these have been mentioned:
You will almost certainly feel like you have been hit by a train post birth
Buy some moist loo paper for the first few post birth poos
If you had a vaginal birth, use pads to hold your bits while doing said poos
Drink loads of OJ and eat poo inducing food
Screw the housework or get someone else to do it
Try to include DH/DP as much as possible-its their baby too
Most of all, just enjoy your baby, they will soon be grown up!

The one snippet I would pass on is lock your front door to prevent your parents/friends from wandering in to your house at the exact moment the midwife is "checking your stitches".

Dont make any plans and just go with the flow. Enjoy the time with your new little one. I was ready to face the world a couple of days after the birth of my two and I loved having loads of visitors - just do what's best for you!

ooh and Angelbabe has very good advice - even if u dont need stitches it was much more comfortable to wee in the bath or through a wet flannel/tissues!!! lovely!

dont read the yummy mummys handbook imho its the devils work esp the part about giving birth,

i tried to rush back to being normal i went to the local shopping centre the day after i got out of hospital, did a two hour bus journey to see a friend because dh wanted them to see the baby travelled to my mil (who i love) who said it would be just the five of us for dinner fil invited the whole family around and i could have sat in the corner rocking after being asked the same question for the millionth time, i thought i was superwoman but had a major crash around the three month mark looking back i wish i had stayed in the house for a coouple of weeks.
tell your visitors you are not feeling yourself they will understand also kindly point people to the door if they are overstaying there welcome
dvd box sets are a lifesaver when you are feeding/up at five am something easy to watch sex and the city friends and beverly hills 90210 did it for me
good luck it is an amazing time and it gets better by the day

I wish I had thought to post a thread like this before having DS. Like adrenalinejunkie I did much too much in the early weeks then 'crashed' later. It is only with hindsight that I can see that the two were related. Wish I had got tips about doing banning visitors/making them bring cake, not getting out of my pjs etc

Best tip I did get was to use one of those blue nightlights/torch at night and save the main lights for the daytime from the first week. It really did help settle LO into a day/night pattern.

1. Sleep whenever you can. Babies take up a lot more of your time as they get older and you will feel like you will NEVER NEVER sleep properly again (sorry, 7 week old is killing me with the night wakings!)

1. Relax - I'm a fool and rushed around cleaning the house and looking after guests. No need and after a few weeks you're expected to be back on your feet so you should take advantage of any offers of help while they are still available.

1. Don't stress about routines or any of that - a newborn will let you know what he wants and when, there is no point in trying to fight it.

1. For me getting dressed was very important, otherwise I would have gotten depressed. Still had a Major case of the baby blues on day 6. MAJOR! Couldn't stop crying all day. But then I got over it!

1. Enjoy the little blighter, it's really sad how short a time they stay so small. If I could go back and start again I would, just to cuddle his tiny curled up sleepy body.

Great tips..bump!

Love, love, love this thread! My tips would be to think of everything as a phase. DH and I would just get settled in a little pattern of when/how things happened then DS would change things around to keep us on our toes! This happened A LOT.

I also kept a little notebook with times of feeds and nappy changes as well as which boob he'd had. It was a lifesaver as I had zero memory!

I loved every second of the newborn stage; there is truely nothing like it. Enjoy and good luck x

Bumping for you all

White noise worked brilliantly for me to get the baby to sleep. Try a hairdryer or radio static or similar. If it works then buy/make a cd of it.

I know most people say about staying in your PJ's and if that works for you then fine. For me though after having DD the best thing I did everyday was have a shower and dry my hair. Mad maybe, but I felt pretty hideous after giving birth, with huge boobs and still bloated tummy and I know I'd have become depressed staying in my PJ's.

And most of all sit and watch your baby sleep. I use to spend ages watching her as she lay swaddled in her moses basket in awe that we had created such a beautiful thing :)

I wish someone had told me:

That it's hard to connect your actual baby with the bump that you're so familiar with.

That you don't have to breastfeed. (I recognise the benefits - but I just wish I hadn't been pressurised in the way that I was).

That the birth would not go according to plan, and that any vague notions I might have had about post-birth would be completely irrelevant (planned home birth turned into a week in hospital including a stint for me in the High Dependency Unit!)

That you will need breast pads/shells to stop breast milk taking you by surprise and flooding your clothes (why did nobody ever mention this to me??)

That you will not be able to get anything done at all.

That you need very big disposable pants for some time afterwards.

I wouldn't have wanted to stay in my PJs either. I found that feeling clean and dry was more important to me than ever.

It really is a case of muddling through, and is largely dependent on the ease (or otherwise) of the birth. My second child was elective cs, and the experience in the early weeks was totally different, and much better.

I agree with waitingforsanta I always feel so much better for a shower and some nice clothes on. I'm now prg with my 4th!

Other tips:

• ignore all the books, and peoples "helpful" comments!
• get lots of meals in the freezer prior to the birth.
• disposable pants are evil, but lots of really cheap cotton ones that you can sling in the bin.
• sea salt in a warm bath is sooo good for stitches!
• take arnica tablets before the birth.

sleep when the baby sleeps for the first couple of weeks.

• bf'ing is not the be all and end all, although I have bf all of mine. On my 3rd one, some stupid woman (and a bf'ing counsellor to boot) told me I was doing it all wrong!!! I'm glad I was an older mum and confident enough to tell her that it was working just fine for us.
• each birth and baby is different, you just can't tell how you're going to feel.

I'd say "Nipple shields are not the Devil's work!"

I had major problems with breastfeeding and was told my nipples were too short (as if I didn't have enough to worry about!). I was cupfeeding ebm on the 4th day in hospital, despairing of ever getting it right and a really helpful old school nurse gave me one. Hey presto!

I then spent the next four weeks being told by all and sundry, including La Leche, that it would affect my milk supply. Every time I fed without one ds would be starving because he couldnt latch on and would just cry and cry. So I carried on using the nipple shields at every feed.

I bf'd exclusively until ds was weaned and had loads of milk.

Newborns don't much like being changed and will scream about it - that was a shocker!

Also they don't much like baths, limit them and when you do give a bath go in the bath with the baby, this is the only way ours seems happy but it is a bit time consuming.

Don't be in a rush to leave hospital after the birth, let them look after you. I rushed to come out and was readmitted three days down the line as we hadn't cracked breastfeeding and the baby was losing too much weight. I had tried to tell everyone we were okay for some reason, be honest!

Haven't read the thread so apologies if I'm repeating:

Buy a thermal camping mug so your tea stays warm
Be prepared for night sweats, I was literally pooled in sweat. I slept on a towel for at least a month & 3 months later still sometimes have to change pjs in the night
Sleep deprivation is torture, you will argue with your dp over the stupidest things, but it's very normal
You will spend a lot of time trying to second guess your baby, yes they probably are hungry, and if you decide to wait up because you think they are going to wake for the next feed, that will be the first time they sleep for four hours!