Share with WaterWipes what you wish you were told before the arrival of your new born - chance to win £300! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

The team at WaterWipes would love to hear what you wish you'd been told before the arrival of your new born.

We all can recall those innocent days before the arrival of baby and the impact having a child can have on your life so please share on this thread what you wish someone had told you - or what you were told which was especially useful!

Here's what WaterWipes says: "WaterWipes contain only 2 ingredients: 99.9% Water and 0.1% grapefruit seed extract. Non-irritating to even the most sensitive of children’s or Mums’ skin, WaterWipes help prevent and alleviate nappy rash and other sensitive skin conditions. WaterWipes are the only baby wipe ever to be endorsed by Allergy UK. We think they're great for newborns and we'd love to hear what other pearls of wisdom you wish you knew before your baby arrived!"

Please share a comment on the thread: you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win £300 voucher for the store of choice (from a list). Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

I wish I'd been told the tiredness was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. As a hardened insomniac, I thought I knew what sleep deprivation felt like.

I wish that I had not bought lots of equipment (e.g. baby bath and door bouncer) which never got used properly.

Dummies, nipple shields, formula, breastfeeding, bottles, sterilising, routine, co-sleeping/not co-sleeping, bonding slowly, instant bond.

Do what works for you and do not get sucked into 'the guilt'!

You think they will stay tiny forever - they don't! Video clips and lots of photos would be my tip.

That babies cry when they are hungry and its not sad! It sounds so stupid until someone pointed out you cannot always stop them crying. That getting to the point of feeling hungry is OK, and that you just feed them then when they are.
Also it is possible that they spew all the time (and if they don't cry/are feeding ok) it doesnt matter, just wipe it up. Again took someone to point out what harm does a bit of spew do! Its not vomiting!

That things might not be as bad as everyone says. I expected labour and birth to be horrendous, recovery to be really painful, breastfeeding to be excrutiating, tiredness to be overwhelming. Actually, everything was much better/easier than I expected - I could have saved myself a lot of worry!

Do whatever it takes to survive - don't feel worried about 'bad habits'. And don't expect days to resemble each-other... Routine will come and it'll be helpful, but you shouldn't stress about finding it when the baby is 8 weeks!

I wish i'd been told to worry less about hosting visitors and keeping the house nice and proving I was coping and more time snuggling my newborn letting other people support me

Newborns dont care how clean the house is

To write down the dates of (and stories behind) milestones, big and little. Document them all with pictures and video - and back it all up!

That the judgments of others really, really doesn't matter and to trust yourself to do what is right for you and your baby.

I wish I was more relaxed about everything - sleep times/feed times, are they getting enough milk, are they bored, etc...I wanted to make sure everything was perfect for them. I think I read too many books/forums as I didn't have many baby-experienced people close by to ask.

I could have done with a few mums telling me to just go with the flow and all will work out ok. Whether I would have listened to such advice is a different matter.

Keep sodium bicarbonate in the cupboard. When your child has a sickness bug and pukes on carpet/sofa/car, this helps neutralise the smell if you sprinkle bicarbonate on before clearing it up.

Have the confidence to trust your own instincts.

Those vests can be rolled down so you can avoid pulling them over the baby's head when the nappy has leaked.

The first few time you have to put a nappy on and dress your baby, you'll be scared of breaking it - you won't!

That when they say that babies feed every four hours, what they mean is that babies feed every four hours for three hours and fifty-five minutes...

The 2 hourly feeds do eventually stop.

I wish I'd known about how tired I would be by day 3 and not spent all of the first night with my baby awake and watching them sleep....I don't think I trusted the fact that I would wake up and hear them if they needed feeding. I cried a lot.

That they don't sleep all the time! Mine was happily awake half the day.

In anticipation of DC3 I was told how easy it would be as I knew what to do, the giver of that advice then said after DC2 was born, "I didn't want to scare you"

I wish I'd been told that Calpol and Neurofen can be taken together. I only discovered this after an ambulance trip when poor DD had a fit caused by a high temperature several days after her MMR. The calpol had just not been enough. It was terrifying at the time but she was fine.

I wish I'd been told to savour every moment and not go back to work so quickly.
Also that at the beginning it's really not that interesting, they do mainly eat sleep and poo and you start wishing for them to walk and talk but as soon as they start you wish they didn't as that's when the real fun starts!!

Ignore "advice " that you haven't asked for!

Definitely wish I'd written more down, you think you'll remember all ten little things but you just don't!

I wish I had known about tongue tie and the far reaching effects it can have on the whole body.

Get all your family to take photos so if your camera/phone goes missing/film cant be developed (if not digital) you have backup baby photos. (Happened to us) we have no photos of ds straight after his birth or the next few days.