Newborn Care

As many mothers and grandmothers will tell you that when you bring a baby home there is no training manual! There is a lot of time and love involved in nurturing a newborn. It is all on the job training!

If this is your first experience with a newborn, you will be particularly on your guard about every little sound that comes from that precious bundle of joy.

You will find that when you bring your newborn home from the hospital all she/he does is eat, poop and sleep! That’s about it for the first six weeks or so. Your job is relatively easy except for the feedings. You will be told at the hospital, if you are bottle feeding, to feed the baby formula every 3 to 4 hours.

For some mums who are breastfeeding they prefer the method of when bubs is hungry they eat. Oh, those late night feeds! This may be your last full nights sleep for awhile. You are supposed to breastfeed ten minutes on each side, but that may not be enough. You will know when your baby is satisfied.

You can also tell that your baby is getting enough to eat by the wet nappies they have. That should be about 8 to 12 wet nappies a day.

Now let’s talk about ways to carry your newborn. You know by now that you should always support your baby’s head and neck as they do not have control over these. Lay your baby on their back and pick him/her up gently with both hands one hand should support their bottom and the other should support the neck and head. Place baby comfortably in the crook of your arm with one hand supporting her little bottom and the other cradling him/her affectionately.

You can also hold your baby cuddled up close to your neck.

Some say a baby should cry it out? However, with newborns crying is their only form of communication, and signals that they need something. It may be they need to be fed, burped, changed, time for a nap, or they may just want some special one-on-one time to be held and cuddled.

It has been suggested that those babies who use a pacifier until they are one to two years old have not been cuddled or held enough or have not been shown enough love when they were smaller. This is a tough one and parents need to do what’s right for their bubs.

Some babies just like that sucking motion and need a pacifier for settling and let’s face it, if baby is settled both mum and dad are far more settled too!

Any parent will tell that your newborn will not stay small for very long. They grow like weeds! Therefore, you do not want to have too many sets of newborn or 0-3 months clothes. They will grow out of them before they can even wear them very much.

Cherish the time that you have with your newborn baby. Your baby will have good days sprinkled with some bad days. However, remember that this too shall pass.