I went to see my gorgeous new nephew the other day. He was only a few days old but the new mum and dad seemed to be coping well and were really quite relaxed.
I had to hold myself back though to avoid bombarding them with advice – when you are a first-time parent everyone from the mother-in-law to the checkout lady at the supermarke provides their two-penneth about what you are doing wrong/ what you are doing right/ what you shouldn’t be doing, and it can be both overwhelming and irritating.
That said, I just couldn’t help but suggest a couple of tips for those bleary newborn days and then decided to gather a few of my favourites up and share them on here….you might find them utterly useless but here goes!
It’s a mum’s life’s top tips for the newborn days:
1. Limit the number of visitors in the first few weeks so you can get a nap in the day time if needed – and encourage anyone who can come during the week to do so, so that weekends are kept for those who work Monday to Friday.
2. When changing poopy nappies- and believe me these come thick and fast in the early weeks when newborns are little poo machines – stretch the nappy bag over an empty margarine tub or wipes tub, so that it’s nice and open. Then when you put the offensive dirty wipes and nappy into the bag, poo doesn’t end up all over the place. Makes it much less fiddly.
3. Be totally boring at night time during feeds so that junior realises as early as possible that night is for sleeping and day is for playing. I never found this difficult as the last thing I felt like doing at a 4am feed was making conversation. And frankly I’m pretty boring at any time of day anyway.
4. Breastfeeding is a wonderful thing as we are all told over and over again by all and sundry but heck if you find you can’t do it, for whatever reason, and have sought help and still can’t, stop. Don’t make yourself miserable over it.
5. Expressing milk makes you feel like a cow in a dairy – it’s totally undignified – possibly even more so than giving birth. I have no advice to help with this other than perhaps to not do it in front of your partner if you still want him to fancy you – but just wanted to warn you.
6. Do not under any circumstances get into the ‘I’m more tired than you’ marital contest. You are both probably incredibly tired but arguing over which of you is the more incredibly tired isn’t going to achieve anything apart from possibly making you more exhausted still.
7. Ignore any unwanted/ irritating/ confusing/ stupid advice from others on how to bring up your child (possibly even this)….that’s certainly what I advised the parents of my new nephew to do the other day anyway….